I’m in the middle of a slow breakup with Apple. It has been painful but, to be honest, the split has been in the works for a few years now. Some people here know that I have been a bit of an Apple obsessive for the last decade plus. I have purchased just about every iPhone, iPad, iPod, iMac and iDontknowwhat. Apple Watch. Apple chargers. Apple Apps. Our house is littered with old Apple products, something that drives my wife Margo absolutely insane.

MARGO: “I found another iPad under a pile of clothes.”

ME: “Oh, hey, I remember — that’s the iPad 2. That was the first one with a camera on it. Interesting story about the iPad 2 …”

MARGO:

It’s more than that, though. I read about Apple stuff all the time. I keep up with Apple rumors. I once was interviewed by Jason Snell of Macworld for something or other, and I think I asked him more questions than he asked me.

So, yeah, we’ve been through a lot together, Apple and me. I’ve given them bajillions of dollars. They’ve given me well-packaged boxes and a couple of life-changing devices and dozens of incrementally better versions of those two life-changing devices. It was swell, Isabel, swell.

But lately, the magic has started to fade. I would say it began changing a couple of years ago when I noticed that Apple software stinks. I’m not a tech writer so I don’t know that these products really stink; I’m sure they are all technological marvels beyond my feeble mind. But they sure did stink for me. One day, I noticed that that I will go to almost any extreme to NOT use Apple software. At one point, I had tried like 20 different mail applications on my iPhone and 20 more on my Mac just to avoid the horror show that is Apple Mail. This is not an exaggeration.

And basically, I don’t use ANY Mac software if I can avoid it. The Apple calendar has kicked me in the teeth on numerous occasions. Apple Maps got my lost. Pages was a nighmare, but not as much a nightmare as Numbers. And don’t even get me started on iTunes.

It was fine — I would use the Apple hardware and then use Google or Microsoft or some other companies software. It was fine. But it was disconcerting. I loved Apple. Why did I loathe using Apple software?

Then I started noticing something about those incremental improvements: With each improvement, Apple also insisted on taking something away. The most famous of these examples is the removal of the headphone jack on the iPhone 7 this year. People have different feelings about it, but it ticks me off to no end. I get that we are entering a wireless world. I get that headphone wires are an outdated thing, something only old fogeys like me who yell at clouds care about. And I get that progress comes and you either go along or get left behind.

But why did they have to get rid of the headphone jack? Why? I have 58,394,127 different headphones and earphones around this house because I keep losing them, because my kids keep getting new ones, because headphones and earphones multiply when no one is looking.

Now Apple is telling me: Those are all useless.

And why? To make the phone 1/10000000000000th of an inch thinner? Was the iPhone 6 not thin enough? Sure, they will give me a dongle to connect my old headphones (and sell me 100 more when I continuously lose them) but it just seems needlessly hostile. And now Apple is getting ready to sell these airpods at an outrageous price even though they are wirelessly designed to do EXACTLY WHAT MY HEADPHONES AND EARPHONES DO RIGHT NOW.

So, yeah, not too happy with Apple on that.

It’s more than that. Where are the new ideas? No, it’s unfair to ask any company to keep coming up with breakthrough after breakthrough — I mean, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, that was a pretty fantastic run. But other companies are trying cool things with virtual reality and augmented reality and 3D stuff and new ways to connect to each other. Whither Apple? The Apple of today reminds me of the scene in “Hudsucker Proxy” where Norville Barnes, after inventing the hula hoop, is asked if he’s running out of ideas. “Not at all,” he said. “Why just this week I came up with several new sweet ideas. A larger model hula hoop for the portly. A battery option for the lazy and handicapped. A model with more sand for the hard-of-hearing. Yes, I’m earning my keep.”

But there’s something else, something more subtle, something personal, something that took me a long time to figure out that finally made me break with Apple. And I will admit right up front that it might make absolutely no sense to you (like the rest of this piece).

Here goes: Apple has ruined the wonderful art of typing for me.

There. I said it. It has taken me a long time to get to this realization. But there it is.

Apple keyboards a few years ago were wondrous new things. They were smooth, sleek, and the keys all seemed to move exactly according to the typist’s command like one of those player-pianos. I am a very fast typist, it’s probably my best quality, but on an Apple keyboards on the iMac or the Macbook Pro I was Usain Bolt, I was Chuck Yeager breaking sound barriers, I was flying.

True story: I was once on a plane typing, this is a few years back, and the guy next to me kept looking over. Bad trait of mine: I really really really really despise when people look over my shoulder as I write. I can’t help it; that just drives me crazy. So I turned to the guy and I must have had that look on my face because the guy said, “Oh, I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking at what you were writing. I was just amazed watching how fast you type.”

Man, I could fly through those things. I wrote four books and 10 million bloggy words on Mac keyboards.

Something was wanting, though. It’s hard to explain — and for a long time I did not understand it at all. I found myself restless when typing. I changed fonts often, always looking for that perfect one (in my Google history there are probably 100 different versions of the search string “Find best font for typing”). I changed writing programs all the time, trying everything from the most basic text editor to a Zen writing program where you type over a faded nature scene and listen to New Age music.

Well, I tried different music when writing too, tried various sounds — for a while, I had this program that made typewriter sounds when I pressed the key, and I kind of liked that.

I couldn’t put my finger on it (ha ha! pun!) but something was missing. I was typing fast but the whole experience was just a little bit … sterile? Flat? Flavorless?

I have no idea how you are reading this right now. You might be nodding your head and saying, “Yeah, I’ve felt that too.” Or you might be going, “This guy has finally lost his mind.” Either way, I felt it. Let’s call it “typing wanderlust.” It’s probably a rare disease.

And I would never have been able to label it except, a couple of years ago, Apple released the Macbook. I bought one immediately. It seemed like the answer to my dreams — it’s a cardboard thin computer that weighs a total of two pounds and has a gorgeous screen. Gadget reviewers were continuously calling it “sexy” which is weird, but I get where they were going. It is a beautiful device and even though it weighs almost nothing, it is perfectly balanced.*

*Geeky observation: If you lay it flat on a table and lift up the top, it opens. I have yet to find another computer that does that.

There was just one quirk about the Macbook — in order to make it THAT thin and THAT light, they had to invent a whole new kind of keyboard. They call the technology “butterfly mechanism” (I think) and it sounds great when narrated by Apple’s Jonathan Ive, though let’s be realistic, Jonathan Ive could make the Batman v Superman script sound like Shakespeare.

Beyond the pretty words, the point of it all is that when you hit a letter, it hardly travels at all. It is one step removed from typing on a flat screen. It is the direction Apple has been going for a long time.

Still, I loved that little Macbook. I took it with me around the world. It felt so light in my bag. It was so easy to use in tight spaces. And the typing on it was … well, who cares, right? That screen! Yes, it’s true, I seemed to make quite a few more typing mistakes than normal. Yes, it’s true, sometimes my fingers hurt at the end of a day of long typing. Yes, it’s true, that my feelings of typing wanderlust only grew.

This week, Apple announced its new Macbook Pro — it’s a whole lot like the old Macbook Pro except it is (of course) thinner, lighter and a little bit sleeker. Also it has something they’re calling a “touch bar”– a thin strip on the computer that is like a little touch screen which changes depending on the program you’re using — which seems very cool until you realize that most laptops these days have giant touchscreen bars they call “the screen.”

Anyway, I felt my old Apple juices flowing, and I thought about selling off some of the anniversary gift jewelry I bought for my wife through the years so I could preorder — then I saw something. I saw that in order to make it thinner and lighter they took the Macbook keyboard and basically put it in the Macbook Pro.

And that’s when it snapped into focus for me

I HATE APPLE’S KEYBOARDS.

Yes! I hate that they make no sound when you type. I hate that you don’t TYPE the key, you just PRESS it. I hate that they’ve been making the keys flatter and flatter until typing has lost all of its motion and force and spirit. I hate that typing has lost some of its violence — writers used to BANG on typewriter keys, and in the early days of computers we all used to BANG on computer keys. It was forceful. It was dynamic. I remember in my earliest days typing on something called the telebubble; it was heavy, and it was awkward, and it had a screen the size of an early Sandy Koufax baseball card, and you would type words and then wait for minutes at a time while the telebubble caught up. But you KNEW you were typing on the telebubble. You were practically WRESTLING with that thing. When it broke, you’d call the office and speak to a tech guy who would tell you “Whack it on the side, maybe that will fix it.”

I hate that Apple has been taking us into a touchpad world where the act of writing is silent and tranquil and passive.

All for what? A little bit thinner? A little bit lighter?

It was just after this epiphany that I went out and bought a mechanical keyboard. It’s the Logitech Orion Red something or other — no idea — and I bought it at a Best Buy after typing a bunch of words on the model and finding myself feeling free. Brought it home. Looks like this.*

*Yes that’s my new Block C Cleveland cap — which I love — and to the left there you see a Cubs patch that my friend Steven Hirschtick sent to me from Thailand.

I cannot begin to tell you how much this keyboard has changed my whole outlook on writing and life and everything. I know it’s stupid but I feel different writing now. This keyboard makes real noise — more of a clacking than a typing sound but satisfying just the same — and I had forgotten how much I love the noise. The keys move under my fingers and they require a good thump, which I love too. OK, no, it’s not exactly like going outside and splitting wood. But there’s a different feel.

And now, I look at the shiny flat keys and thin body glistening touch bar of the Macbook Pro – and I don’t want that life anymore. It was fun with Apple. Somewhere along the way, we just started wanting different things.

Share this:

Joe Posnanski writes about sports for a living, particularly baseball. Here, he writes about sports and also Springsteen, Hamilton, Harry Potter, iPads, infomercials, his idolization of Duane Kuiper, his family and magic. He lives in Charlotte with his wife Margo, two daughters Elizabeth and Katie, and their dog Westley. Joe is currently working on a book about Harry Houdini in today’s world.

49 Responses to My Mechanical Keyboard

Aw man, Joe… I’ve been married to Apple since 1991 (Mac Classi) — was pimping the original Mac (with Graphic Interface!) in 1983. Suffered through the Performa and G3 until rebounding nicely with the G5 and MacBook Pro. And now I wonder if our whole relationship has been a lie…

I appreciate that Apple has brought on all this innovation but I still hate their products. They think the users are idiots to a fault which allows for minimal tinkering/customization. Half their popularity has been making things sleek and pretty while force-feeding their programs/features on users.

I have never purchased and Apple product in my life but my work phone has been an iPhone for a few years now and fixing my parents’ Mac desktop is always a pull-your-hair-out experience.

Now, I just noticed, the time registered for my contribution is 5 hours faster than the time in my time zone i.e. GMT not CDT!
Also, I typed AN not AND in my former contribution …
Joe, can I blame this SNAFU on my 2014 MacBook Air??

I just bought myself an actual typewriter, so I can’t really argue with you on this one, sir. Also, speaking of new FUs from Apple – how about getting rid of the swipe to open on the new IOS? It really is much more difficult to get my phone open if it’s just sitting on my desk than it was before. Sigh…

Great job seeing the light. But having a clicky keyboard provides more than just romantic old guy vibes. It is less error prone. Presumably you touch type. If so, you are typing by touch (duh). If you don’t get solid tactile feedback from pressing the key, it’s harder to know if you’ve pressed the key properly. Lenovos have the best keyboards on the market by far, especially the ThinkPad line.

Absolutely agree. When my company insisted on buying me a new computer last month, I insisted on a ThinkPad. The T460s has the perfect keyboard. I can tell without looking when my finger has pressed the key just enough. ON that keyboard, I can fly.

Completely agree about Apple software. iTunes << Spotify, iCloud << Dropbox, and on and on and on, as you mentioned. Still love the Apple hardware, however, and you'll get good $$$ for those used products. They just last longer and are better made than comparable Windows items. Typing this now on a 2013 Macbook Air, works just as well as when I first purchased it. Try that with a 2013 Dell.

I can’t believe I just lost 5 minutes of my life while you groused about keyboards. I was sure you’d finally tell the world the REAL problem with Apple. They’re JERKS about passwords! My next phones and tablets will not be Apple because they want to decide how complex my password needs to be. With all due respect, they can bite my Apple-deciding how much risk I’m taking is none of their darn business. Adios Apple!

Their software is comparably bad. Siri is a bad joke on their loyal customers. Don’t even get me started on this new iTunes. Maps? How many years is does it take to catch up to Google’s version … from 3 years ago? Thinking of leaving. The media content conversion project frightens me. Suggestions?

“It’s more than that. Where are the new ideas? No, it’s unfair to ask any company to keep coming up with breakthrough after breakthrough — I mean, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, that was a pretty fantastic run.”

Joe, you answered your own question pretty well there. Probably should have deleted the whole paragraph.

As for the software problems, I agree up to a point. I find most of the Apple software well designed but containing too many minor bugs. For some reason, I have had no problems with Mail.app, but I could compile a short list of them for Podcasts.app. I’d like for Apple to dedicate six months to nothing but bug fixes. It’ll never happen (such a move would derail their annual release schedule), but I’d like it to.

That said, I like your comments about the keyboard. I don’t happen to agree with them, but keyboard feel is a matter of taste, and I appreciate your perspective.

Although, the last iTunes update seems to be working very well; I agree, at least six months, a year might be needed to correct some of their software problems! The correct approach would be a complete redesign of their software! The current SOP seems to be – they correct a glitch in the iTunes software, another problem quickly becomes evident …
Less time perfecting their stage performances, their costumes, their hair styles, their stage choreography (someone has been viewing too many of the Rolling Stones videos) – would, hopefully, mean more time spent on writing software that actually works for the majority of the people who use their hardware!!!
I suggest they locate and hire Alfred E. Neuman for their front-man, hire Woody Allen for their comedy routines, then figure a way to resurrect Steve Jobs so he can re-assume his work as the CEO of Apple!!

I love the IBM Model M keyboards.
For many there is too much “travel” an the noise of clickety clack.
They last for decades.
But they usually, when found, have a mini-din (PS2) connector. So you need a PS2 to USB converter.

Lots of copies to try.
Wander through the lists at keyboardco.com mentioned by the Guardian’s Jack Schofield.

I had to buy a couple of replacements for our Mac’s keyboard, still not sure why.
Am currently using a Microsoft USB mouse on our Mac.
Use Gmail for e-mail, haven’t used any of Apple’s software really except for iTunes, but ITunes messed up my music library and I had to learn how to merge separate music libraries to rebuild it.
There are not enough utilities for OS/X out there, compared to what is available for Windows.

I never understand why Apple has nearly zero documentation for their software or for their operating system utilities.

Some things Apple does well, I had no trouble loading my mother’s 14 year old photo CDs into Photo while she wasn’t able to load them herself.

I hope Apple will continue caring about the Mac rather than go off in random directions just to please their investors. e.g. why did they drop the XServe? Low sales? Why not address the cause of low sales instead of dropping the product?

After experiencing a typing epiphany, I moved my work spaces to mechanical keyboards about 2 years ago. Each keyboard (now totaling 4) has a different switch type and, based on its individual characteristics, seems to have found its preferred application.

For writing at home, MX Brown is my preferred switch. I’ve two keyboards with these switches, including a Freewrite for free range prose.

In the office, at my standing desk, the MX Clear works best. A little body sway during typing is countered by the slightly stiffer key tactile response.

And finally, a new Romer G switch keyboard is finding its place in my heart. The cushioned key travel is very light weight and linear.

That was a lot of prelude to a disappointing conclusion. If you don’t like Apple, then where will you go? Lenovo with its mushy keyboards? The only new laptop with a mechanical keyboard is the new Razer Blade Pro gaming laptop.

Cherry MX does not make great mechanical keyboards, either. Just the most affordable with decent quality. I got a keyboard with Cherry MX Blue, which requires more force than the Cherry MX Red in the Logitech keyboard, and it is still so soft that I feel like my fingers need to flutter above it. It doesn’t help that bottoming out Cherry MX key switches is so hard that my fingers felt sore after a day of using it. I got rubber dampers to soften the blow; that also decrease the travel distance.

The IBM Model M is pretty good. Some of the workers were so enthusiastic that they actually bought the factory after IBM spun out that division of the company, and still sell Model M style keyboards, with modern key layouts. Only avoid the Unicomp trackpoint keyboards, because they don’t have the classic IBM TrackPoint but some crappy imitation. They’re much cheaper than buying some refurbished original Model M. https://www.pckeyboard.com

Try an old Apple keyboard from about 1990 (orange Alps switches) if you can find one. You have no idea what you’re missing. Apple’s keyboards used to have some of the best typing keyswitches in the world.

Spot on article. Mechanical keyboards are a joy to use; you’ll find a welcoming community of fellow enthusiasts throughout the internet. I’m in so deep that I actually build my own mechanical keyboards from scratch, which isn’t as hard or as crazy as it might initially sound. But it doesn’t stop at keyboards. I’m in love with my Evoluent Vertical Mouse. I can’t live without my Eizo FlexScan monitors (they help me manage my headaches and eye strain). You’ll never convince me to replace my Grado headphones with those stupid AirPods.

The old Apple always built the Mac with a respect for the user’s true/individual needs and a flair for humanist touches. User interfaces were self-evident, fonts were readable, they were never afraid to use goofy iconography (like that quill pen on the old Pages icon). Some of that warmth and mutual understanding has disappeared from the Mac over the last few years, leaving me to wonder where Apple is going and whether or not I should go with them. People have diverse needs, and the human-centric Apple of yesterday understood and accommodated this in their own opinionated way. The new Apple is removing headphone jacks from their products, building super proprietary interfaces like the Touch Bar that will only be available from Apple, etc. The less they care about my needs, the less I’ll care about their products.

Removing the socket reduces the manufacturing cost of phone and pushes the customers into spending more on adapters and headphones with integrated batteries, radio and amplifiers. They perfected the miniaturization of their wireless headphones, so they count on being able to sell more of those premium devices (at higher cost) than the competition.
The only reason for removing the headphone socket was promoting the sales of very high profit headphones. They just added a new non-trivial category to their sales portfolio.

Really enjoyed this, you might want to consider getting a “60%” sized mechanical keyboard for mobile use. If someone hasn’t stepped in to educate you on the variety of key-switches(red, blue, brown, etc) you can choose from, boy, there’s a whole world of options and customization there. Cheers, looking forward to reading your other works.

If you type a lot, you should definitely try Kinesis Advantage. It’s the only keyboard that let’s me type for 14 hours straight. I gotta tell you – I am obsessed with mechanical keyboards – I’ve tried all sorts of boards. Try Advantage – you’ll hate me for about eight hours or maybe even for a few days, you mae need to remap a few keys and create couple of macros – but after that, you’d feel what it really means to use a mechanical keyboard.

Don’t even get me started about the Lightning connector charge port. When my iPhone 4 quit completely, went dark after 15 months – out of warranty, of course, I was bumped to the iPhone5 and basically told that the drawer full of chargers I had were useless. And, oh, by the way, we built a proprietary chip in there so we can overcharge you until the peripheral manufacturer can crack the code and offer chargers at reasonable prices. And the contacts wear out WAY faster than the old 30-pin.

Many of us are attracted to Apple in our youth. But then we long to stretch our wings, to try new things and explore new horizons. Also, we long to buy hardware that doesn’t cost twice as much for half the functionality. And we discover that Apple won’t let you do any of those things. All that Apple will let you do is be in the club with the other cool kids.

But we aren’t kids anymore. We want to do things our own way. We want to do real work, with real software. The hand-holding was fine for a while, but it is time to let go and stand on our own now. Good-bye, Apple.

Joe, I noticed how bad my typing had gotten and how keyboard feel and the visceral experience seemed to have a lot to do with it. I was paying less attention, tended to miss the shift key more often, etc. etc.

I now have two Corsair keyboards with Cherry MX Red switches, the key travel is great. However, I do miss a sense of when the key actually registers a click. For that, my best solution involves AutoHotKey, a few wave files, and a simple script saying what sound to play for what key. It is wonderful. Various key-sound-programs don’t seem to work well, aren’t intelligent enough, or aren’t free to use. So this is what I’m currently using and I’m very happy with it. If you’re interested, I can get you the script and the sound files (that I recorded and edited). I’m very proud of how “tactile” that sound is, without being gimmicky or annoying.

One major bit of advice. I’ve been a touch typist for over 50 years, and a computer programmer for most of them. I’ve hit more keystrokes than most people; game design is mostly writing, and programming requires a lot of typing. Unlike most of the computer nerds of my generation, I’m free of carpal tunnel syndrome and arthritis in my hands because I was an early adopter of the ergonomic keyboards. A standard keyboard just isn’t designed for human elbows. If you put your hands together, index finger to index finger, you may see a V shaped gap. That’s caused by too much typing stretching the fingers out of place. Mine were that way a while ago, but now my index fingers lay flat against each other. Logitech makes a very nice ergonomic keyboard; so does Microsoft. So I strongly suggest you get one. Future Joe will thank you for saving him a lot of pain; it’s hard to prove a negative, but my hands don’t hurt at all, which they did before I switched. I can bang like crazy on it, the keys go down (not quite as well as the old IBM PC feel, but close) with positive feedback, they generally have built in wrist support (also important) and they’ll even plug into your Macbook via USB (wired or not).